Newsletter
Dedicated to Austrian-Hungarian Burgenland Family History

THE BURGENLAND BUNCH NEWS - No. 151
DEDICATED TO AUSTRIAN-HUNGARIAN BURGENLAND FAMILY HISTORY
(Our 11th Year - Issued monthly as email by G. J. Berghold
May 31, 2006
(c) 2006 G. J. Berghold - all rights reserved

Current Status Of The BB:
Members: 1300; Surname Entries: 4498; Query Board Entries: 3527; Newsletter Subscribers: 1037; Newsletters Archived: 151; Staff Members: 16

EMAIL RECIPIENTS PLEASE READ: You are receiving this email newsletter because you are a BB member or have asked to be added to our distribution list. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send email to G. J. Berghold with message "subscribe" or "remove". ("Cancel" will cancel membership, website listings and newsletter.) You cannot send email to this newsletter. If you have problems receiving the newsletter as email, it may be read, downloaded, printed or copied from the BB Homepage. There is also an archive of previous newsletters.

This first section of our 2-section newsletter concerns:

1. Update Of Honoree Website & Call For Help
2. Village Of Hannersdorf & Hanners Name - Salzburg Emigration
3. Village Of Frauenkirchen & Stifter Name
4. BB Member's Web Pages - Hadl Family
5. Recent Obituaries Concerning Burgenland Ethnic Families
6. Croatian Origins In The Eisenstadt (Oslip) Area
7. St. Janos Name Index


1. UPDATE OF HONOREE WEBSITE & CALL FOR HELP

Frank Paukowits writes: I just wanted to bring you up to date on what we have been doing to expand our website. The major thrust recently has been to significantly increase the number of honorees on our Lehigh-Valley Remembrance List. With the invaluable help of Bob Strauch (BB Lehigh Valley Editor) and Margaret Kaiser (BB Editor for the Szt. Gotthard and Jennersdorf Districts), in a short period of a few months we have been able to put together a list of over 500 names of Burgenländers who settled in the Lehigh Valley area. Our goal for the year is to identify 1,000 honorees from this area, an achievable target. The best way to do this is to visit the cemeteries where these Burgenländers are buried and copy information from the gravestones. I thought your idea of getting a group of BB members together on a specific weekend to make these visits made a lot of sense. Not only would it be an effective way to get information for the site, but it would enable some of our members from the Lehigh Valley area to meet and work with others from the BB on a project involving their heritage. The weekend of June 25 and 26 seems to work the best for us. The Coplay Sängerbund is hosting a Stiftungsfest on Sunday, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to cap off the weekend. Our plan is to do cemetery visits on Saturday, and maybe some on Sunday, and then attend the Stiftungsfest, which begins at 2:00 P.M. on Sunday.

We could use all the help we can get. It would be great if we could get a large group of BB Members to participate. I know that many of our members live in the Lehigh Valley Area. If any are interested in spending a few hours on this project that weekend, they can e-mail me at paukowits1(a)aol.com, and I'll provide them with the details.


2. VILLAGE OF HANNERSDORF & HANNERS NAME - SALZBURG EMIGRATION

A correspondent writes: My name is Michael Hanners, McKinney, Texas. I am interested in the Hanners name. Hannersdorf is the only place which seems to bear my name. My family settled very early in Georgia and I have been unsuccessful in tracing lineage across the Atlantic. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Reply: Unless you have other data, I seriously doubt that your name bears any relationship to Hannersdorf, Burgenland, Austria. I have no record of any direct emigration from Burgenland to Georgia. Hanner is a Germanic name which stems from Haehn (Hähn), Haehner, Haehnert, Haginher (one in charge of an enclosure). The addition of the "s" is of local derivation. There was post-Reformation emigration to Georgia by Protestant people from Salzburg - you might be able to link to them or some other direct Germanic movement or a post immigration move from elsewhere in the US. Your best bet would be to start linking to your direct family, starting with grandparents and going back from there. There are no Hanners in today's Hannersdorf and I doubt if there ever were any. Hannersdorf (864 inhabitants) is in the district of Oberwart in middle Burgenland, was called Hammersdorf until 1924, was called Samfalva, Hungary pre-1921 when the Burgenland was created as the ninth state (province) of Austria by the post-WW-I Treaty of Trianon. Today it includes the villages of Burg and Woppendorf as part of a market community. It was first mentioned in the year 1406 as "Samfolua" (Hungarian). Its German name, Hannersdorf, is thought to come from "Heinrichsdorf." The village was mostly destroyed by Turkish invasion in 1522 and rebuilt. Emigration to the Americas was mostly prior to WW-I; in 1902 a Ringhofer family went to Chicago.

Second Reply: Further to my most recent email, I checked my book concerning the Salzburger emigration. I refer you to "The Salzburger Saga - Religious Exiles and Other Germans Along the Savannah" by George Fenwick Jones, published by Georgia University Press, 1984. You should find a copy in any large Georgia library.

In 1731, the archbishop of Salzburg (Austria) expelled 20,000 Protestants (mostly Lutherans) who refused to convert to Catholicism (Austria adopted Catholicism as the monarchial and aristocratic religion during the counter Reformation after most Austrians and southern Germans had become Lutherans during the Reformation). Three hundred of these forced emigrants accepted the invitation of the Georgia Trustees to settle in their new colony. The first transport arrived in 1734, three more came in the next 7 years. They named their new settlement Ebenezer. They were then joined by Swiss, Palatines (so-called Penna. Dutch) and Württembergers. In the published version of the Ebenezer Church Records I find:

   Hammer, An (Anna) Ros 1717 (birth date) Saxon
   Hammer, Elis (Elisabeth) 1743, Saxon
   Hammer, Pet (Peter) Saxon from Chemnitz

I think you would do well to investigate any and all available literature concerning the Salzburger settlement area in Georgia. You might even find a reference to your family name being changed from Hammer to Hanners. Most south German and Salzburg names ended in "er".

The Ebenezer, Georgia, area included Abercorn, Goshen, Bethany, Purysburg, Halifax, Savannah, Acton and Vernonburg. You may have ancestors from those areas - if so, it would be one clue that you are a descendant of the Salzburger migration. This of course would also link you to a European origin in the Salzburg or southern German (Rhine Hesse, Salzburg, Austria, Franconia, Swabia, Bavaria) area. There is other literature and I believe the LDS (Mormon Church) can provide some microfilm available at any of their family history centers.


3. VILLAGE OF FRAUENKIRCHEN & STIFTER NAME

A correspondent writes: I was browsing the net and have just begun to look up some family material. I am a new genealogy society member. I know very little about my father's family.

My father's name was Stephen (Stefan) Stifter, b.June 13, 1906, in Frauenkirchen, Burgenland, and died March 23, 1958, in Kelowna, B.C., Canada. He emigrated to Canada in 1929.

His father's name was Michael Stifter, b.1871, Frauenkirchen, died 1943, buried in Frauenkirchen and one of 7 siblings (apparently). I do not know what their names were nor have any other information. His mother's name was Anna Kaiser, b.1880 in Hungary, died in 1947 and is also buried in Frauenkirchen. She was also one of 7 children - one of whom apparently died in infancy. I know nothing of her siblings.

Michael and Anna had 8 children - besides my father, there was Michael Jr. b.March 16, 1903; Josef, b.March 16, 1904; then my father was next; Therese b.Feb. 23, 1908; Mathias b.April, 1909; Paul b.January 25, 1914; Katherine b.October 29, 1916 and Maria b.September 11, 1922.

As far as I know, Maria is still alive. We have communicated with Paul's son Herbert who teaches English at a high school in Gattendorf. My sister and I had visited Herbert's family around 1988 and have since not communicated very much. We learned all the above at that time, but due to time restraints and the language barrier, we were very fortunate to learn that much. Anyway, if you could direct me to any clues to find out more, I would certainly appreciate it. I have some publications about Adalbert Stifter b.1805 and wish to know if and how we could be related.

My name now is Elizabeth (Elsie) St Amand (nee Stifter) e-mail: elsiedesaint(a)aol.com.

Reply: As you are new to genealogy as well as Burgenland research, let me state that you must start with what you know and can prove and go from there linking generation by generation with birth (baptism), marriage and death records. Fortunately, the Burgenland church records from 1828-1921 are available as microfilm from the Mormon Church (LDS) and in this way one can trace family if one knows the place of origin as you do. Frauenkirchen in the Burgenland district of Neusiedell am See in northern Burgenland (Hungarian name: Boldogasszony) is its own RC parish and has a very large and significant church, a basilica - therefore, I would direct you to the LDS in order to search these records if your family is RC. In 1883, there was a large Jewish population of 629 people, so Frauenkirchen had its own synogogue as well - I do not know the location of those records although many have been preserved. There were only 9 Lutherans so I doubt if you need search for Lutheran records. Pre-1921 Civil Records (dating from 1896) are probably located in Moson. You will have to acquire a certain skill in reading German, Latin and Hungarian church records, which is not all that difficult but you will have to persevere. These church records all follow the usual Christian church English format. Our newsletter archives will tell you how to do that - search our index. You should also search our website for more concerning Frauenkirchen (surname list-village list-householders in 1858, etc.).

From the above you can see that it would be futile to jump from what you know today to a link to the author Adelbert Stifter. Stifter is not an uncommon name in northern Burgenland - there are still two in Frauenkirchen today. You might try the online Austrian phonebook for the location of others. The only way to prove a family link is to connect the records. I seriously doubt a link since Adelbert was born in Bohemia and spent much of his later life in Vienna. I am not aware of any connections to Frauenkirchen. Then again, your family may have links to Bohemia (todays' Czech Republic) once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. See our Invitation Letter for how to connect with us and find our website addresses.


4. BB MEMBERS' WEBPAGES - HADL FAMILY
    -suggested by Anna Kresh

One of the prime objects of the BB is to link descendants of Burgenland area immigrants. In addition to listing data in our membership, surname and village web pages, we encourage members to build there own web pages where they can list and share genealogical family detail too voluminous for our website. URL editor Anna Kresh lists available web pages which can then be reached by hyperlink. Following is a recent addition:

A BB member writes: Let me introduce myself: My name is William A Hadl, and I am a BB member, was born in Nazareth, PA, and my father Frank Hadl immigrated from Urbersdorf. I now live in Colorado Springs, CO. I have been doing research on four BB families: HADL, LOHR, JAUTZ and WUNDERLER.

I have these families in a genealogy web page, including photos and some family stories, and believe it might be helpful to some one else in their family research if they had access to it via the 'Burgenland Bunch Members' Home Pages. I want to contribute to the BB in a way, and for now this may be it! Having spent may hours building my web page, I appreciate your contribution to BB and, as a member, I want to thank you. My web page URL is: freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~myhadlfamily


5. RECENT OBITUARIES CONCERNING BURGENLAND ETHNIC FAMILIES
    - from Bob Strauch

Emilia "Millie" Artinger, 80, of S. Whitehall Township, passed away April 26, 2006 in Allentown. She was the wife of the late Frank L Artinger (1924-1976). Born in Jakobshof, Hungary, she was the daughter of the late Johann Schuster and Maria (Santa) Kovacs. There is a cousin in Unterradling.

Anna Santa, 84, of Allentown, passed away on May 19. She was born in Jakobshof, Hungary to the late Franz and Juliana (Simitz) Santa and was predeceased by her husband, Karl Santa Sr.


6. CROATIAN ORIGINS IN THE EISENSTADT (OSLIP) AREA

Of the three major ethnic groups in the Burgenland, the origins of the Croats are the easiest to trace. Not only have they been well researched in recent years but they arrived fairly late (16th century) and over a relatively short period (most Croat migration occurred between 1500-1600). Migration was primarily caused by Turkish incursions into Croatia with the Croatians fleeing as refugees. We are fortunate in having BB editor Frank Teklits' English translation of Johann Dobravich's "People on the Border - On the History of the Burgenland Croats" (see serialized version in the BB newsletter archives). In Newsletter 151A, which follows, the question is asked; "What was the origin of the Oslip Croatians?"

Dobravich supplies the following answer:
"The Croatian historiographer Mate Ujevic in page 7 of his treatise 'Gradiscanski Hrvati' Zagreb 1934: From 1522 until 1526, the inhabitants of the Croatian coastal area moved from the precincts of Zengg (Senj) and from the mountain valleys of Lika, Gacka, Krbava into the county of Odenburg." (Queen Maria, widow of Hungarian Ludwig II addressed this in an extant order dated September 7, 1526.)

The origin of the Croats in the two present districts (Eisenstadt and Neusiedel am See) of the northern sector differs from that of the Croats in the southern sector (districts of Güssing and Jennersdorf) who, in 1524, were brought by Military Governor Franz Batthyany from his Croatian holdings southeast of Zagreb (Varasdin) to his recently acquired domain of Güssing. Urbars detailing the villages of origin of specific family names have been translated into German (one source is Robert Hajszan's "Die Kroaten der Herrschaft Güssing") and may be found in the Burgenland state library, but there are as yet no English translations. Origin of Croatians in other Burgenland districts will be found in "People on the Border" and it is my understanding that there have been other German translation of Latin and Hungarian Urbars. A fertile field for some English translation.


7. ST. JANOS NAME INDEX

Howard Heck writes: My search of the Church records in St. Andra and in St. Johann, in Moson County, was very difficult because of my limited knowledge of German and Latin. The proper names were especially difficult because the penmanship of most of the priests was poor. While reviewing the LDS FHL roll number 630788, I came across an index of baptisms at the Catholic Church in St. Johann (Szentjanos, Moson) from 1827 to 1847. The names are in alphabetical order and are very easy to read. The index contains hundreds of names that are found in many villages in Burgenland. It can be used to find the accurate spelling of names. (ED. Note: Spelling will vary depending on language used.)


Newsletter continues as number 151a.